mama who bore me, who made me so sad
by particularly good finder
Summary: Once upon a time, an angel birthed a monster and the world went up in flames.


_Mama who bore me__ / __Mama who gave me /__no way to handle things__ / __Who made me so bad_

_Mama, the weeping__ / __Mama, the angels__ / __No sleep in Heaven / or Bethlehem_

_-Mama Who Bore Me, Spring Awakening_

* * *

She's a wild mess of pretty blonde hair and black lace and bruised lips, of fiery passion and red stilettos. Her dark eyes reflect the smoky rooms she haunts, filled with the scent of sex and smoke and mistakes. She's sixteen – the age of her teenage mother when she was conceived – but she's far from innocent.

Beth – such a plain, ugly name, she thinks – is no angel. She's seen the pictures of her mother – her _real_ mother – and Quinn Fabray is a fucking angel. Blonde hair, fair skin, honor student, head cheerleader – all she's missing is wings. Beth is a demon, honestly. That's what her stepfather tells her, at least, when he pushes her down onto his bed, unzipping her jeans. A demon who drove her mother (adoptive mother, he also reminds her) to drinking, who made her so sad.

She's a tangled, tortured mosaic of broken beer bottles and love notes scribbled on nightclub napkins. She lives for the dead of night, when the city is bright and the clubs are dark and the music seeps into every pore of her body, until she forgets why she's not asleep in her own bed, why she fears being alone. Beth lives for the musk of strangers surrounding her, the music beating her mind into submission. A man's hand brushes her back, a pair of primal eyes meet her own, and she's stumbling into an alley, her skirt hitched and her legs spread. He's just another fuck, another chance to be in control, another chance to lose her innocence, to be the demon she was born to be.

Beth's a ticking time bomb, a dying star waiting to be a supernova. She reeks of lust and despair and bloodstained skin, of a need to live and die at the same time, a need to forget.

She doesn't cry. Demons don't cry. Tears are for the weak.

The Angel finds Beth, eventually. It's all by chance really. Quinn is celebrating her son's fifth birthday with a nice family dinner at Applebee's. Beth is a waitress (Hooters is more her style, but this job makes her mom worry just a little less) and happens to be the one to ask Quinn what she wanted to drink.

Suddenly, the world is up in flames. Quinn knows her – they look so much alike, really – and she excuses herself to the little girls' room, leaving Ben with his grandmother. Pulling Beth aside, The Angel begins to cry, hugging her close.

Quinn smells like magnolias and shampoo and purity and it makes Beth sick. She pushes The Angel away, snarling in disgust. She feels so sad and angry and sick and vulnerable and she hates Quinn for making her feel this way.

Quinn just cries a little more, and she's just so _fucking pretty_ when she does it that Beth wants to punch her. But she doesn't; instead, she falls into the woman's arms, sobbing. Quinn's so warm and smells so sweet and holds her so tenderly that Beth never wants to leave her embrace, as sick and dirty as she feels.

Pure, white skin brushes against her scarred, demon face (such a jarring juxtaposition), and the two women cry and shake and mold themselves to one another, forgetting that people are watching.

Beth goes home with Quinn that night, and the two talk for hours until the sky lightens outside. Quinn's husband takes Ben to school the next morning, letting Quinn sleep, arms tight around Beth. Now that she knows of Beth's life, she hates herself for ever letting her go.

Beth Corcoran is not a demon; she's a fallen angel, with ash on her face and weeds in her hair and ice on her skin. Now that the Queen Angel has found her, she never wants to go back to the hell she's known. Never again will she see that devil-man or the woman who's drunken herself into a ghost. She's a whirlwind of addiction and neglect and broken hearts, but Quinn knows the type, and how to fix her. With flowers in her eyes and love in her heart, she'll mend the daughter she lost so long ago.

Beth stirs in Quinn's arms, whispering a word she's long forgotten.

"Mama."


End file.
